Research Guide for the Unaffiliated: Women’s Cooperatives in Latin America

Introduction (include something about what women’s cooperatives are, they exist worldwide in developing and developing nations, empower women economically and socially, etc.)

Explain layout (if we divide it into sections), e.g.

- General research resources about women in the economies of developing nations, including Latin America

- Examples of women’s cooperatives (and the like) in Latin America

Sites we’ve found so far:

1. Counterpart – definitely, do development work in a variety of locations and poverty levels, see here for women in Zimbabwe cooperative: http://www.counterpart.org/Default.aspx?tabid=353

2. Maryknoll – missionary group, some are doing work that supports economic development, may need to dig around a bit more on this http://laymissioners.maryknoll.org/index.php?module=MKGive&func=focusAreas&id=11

3. Plenty International – has some info on Latin American women’s stuff: http://www.plenty.org/projects.html

4. a few good papers (PDF) on the Women and the Economy page here: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/asp/user/list.asp?ParentID=3006. Most of these papers are general, less geographically-specific

5. World Bank’s Gender Action Plan seems relevant, but I couldn’t find much else that was directly relevant on this site: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTGENDER/0,,contentMDK:21104005~menuPK:336874~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336868,00.html

6. INSTRAW (United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women) also has a section on their website on Gender and Funding for Development (http://www.un-instraw.org/en/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=641&Itemid=127). Lots of resources there, many on how to make sure that women are represented in the economies of developing nations. Lots of links too (esp. under Civil Society): http://www.un-instraw.org/en/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=844&Itemid=138

7. Women’s Edge Coalition (http://www.womensedge.org/) – their slogan is “Ending global poverty begins with women’s opportunity” so they seem like a good fit for us. Again, worldwide. Seems more to provide funding etc. than issue reports (though there is a lot of research in the library on this site). They accept volunteers and donations, and also have a shopping area.

8. IGTN (http://www.igtn.org/): “The International Gender and Trade Network is a network of feminist gender specialists who provide technical information on gender and trade issues to women's groups, NGOs, social movements and governments. IGTN acts as a political catalyst to enlarge the space for a critical feminist perspective and global action on trade and globalization issues.” They have a lot of research (papers) available in their library (http://www.igtn.org/page/search)

9. Women’s World Banking (http://www.swwb.org/): “The Women's World Banking network gives the world's poorest entrepreneurs the means to lift themselves out of poverty by providing them with access to financial services and information.”

10. Church World Service – a good candidate, they do lots of stuff along the development and poverty-relief track, but there is a presentation on empowering women for Intl Women’s Day on 3/8 (http://www.churchworldservice.org/Educ_Advo/index.html -- used to be linked from here, I downloaded it, may not be relevant?)

Here’s the money shot:

https://secure.churchworldservice.org/catalog/display.php?category_id=44

11. World of Good: http://www.worldofgood.com/about/ and http://www.worldofgood.com/share/impact/index.shtml#economic (this one is the store) and http://www.worldofgood.org/ (this one is the development organization) – do as one resource or two? Maybe count as two but discuss in one annotation?

12. www.groots.org - Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood

13. www.wedo.org - Women's Environment and Development Organization

14. http://www.wen.org.uk/ - Women's Environmental Network

15. Instituto Social y politico de la Mujer http://www.ispm.org.ar/

16. Fair Trade Federation - http://www.fairtradefederation.org/

17. Grameen Foundation: http://www.grameenfoundation.org/who_we_are/ “Grameen Foundation's mission is to empower the world's poorest people to lift themselves out of poverty with dignity through access to financial services and to information. With tiny loans, financial services and technology, we help the poor, mostly women, start self-sustaining businesses to escape poverty.”

18. Pro Mujer: http://www.promujer.org/ “To provide Latina America’s poorest women with the means to build livelihoods for themselves and futures for their familes”

19. Women for Women International (maybe; the only LA place they do is Colombia): http://www.womenforwomen.org/colombia.htm

20. Dr. Linda Mayoux: she’s a Cambridge UK PhD consultant on developing nations and microfinance and women’s empowerment. Her site has articles but also bibliographies – here’s the microfinance page: http://www.lindaswebs.org.uk/Page2_Livelihoods/Microfinance/MFIntro.htm

21. Gender Action: http://www.genderaction.org/about.html “dedicated to promoting gender equality and women's rights in all International Financial Institution (IFI) investments such as those of the World Bank”

22. The International Alliance for Women Microenterprise Development Program: http://www.tiaw.org/microenterprise.asp

Some specific examples, from Latin America:

1. Nicaraguan sewing cooperative: http://www.fairtradezone.jhc-cdca.org/

2. Development of a women’s cooperative in Ecuador: http://www.interconnection.org/condor/english_/proyects/mujeres_.html

3. Artcamp - Artesanas Campesinas http://www.artcamp.com.mx/

4. Chiapas Women's Cooperative http://www.dghonline.org/nl16/chiapas.html

5. Rocinha, Brazil, women’s cooperative Coopa Roca: http://www.coopa-roca.org.br/en/index_en.html

6. Peru women’s coffee growing cooperative Café Feminino: http://www.cafefemeninofoundation.org/story.html

(also I googled women cooperative microfinance – results 17-22 are from that search)